


and they keep not letting go

by Marianne_Dashwood



Series: what love seeks [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Communication, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, The Lonely - Freeform, and there is only one BED, pre-160, stupid idiots not realising that theyre in LOVE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:21:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21516724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marianne_Dashwood/pseuds/Marianne_Dashwood
Summary: It’s an electric feeling, something strange and new and familiar all at once, even though he has been holding Martin’s hand for most of the day. His stomach swoops, like he is standing on the edge of the precipice of realisation and staring into the void of unknowing. But at the same time, he does know. In this instant of contact between them, the last few years of cups of tea and small smiles and momentary glances, of panic and fear and only feeling safe with Martin’s solid presence in the room, despite his paranoia, rush into him, and oh, oh oh.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: what love seeks [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537819
Comments: 33
Kudos: 320





	and they keep not letting go

**Author's Note:**

> hello! I come bearing pining and fluff and hurt/comfort! please enjoy!
> 
> As usual, I can be found @MJDashwood on twitter and marianne-dash-wood on tumblr! come yell at me about tma!!

Jon keeps holding Martin’s hand. He isn’t quite sure why, and he knows he should stop, but it’s difficult when his brain keeps insisting that Martin might disappear if he doesn’t keep a hold of him. Martin seemed happy enough to let him keep reaching out, at least on the way up to the Scottish safe house. He supposes it’s more of a comfort to Martin than to him, at least it was then. Particularly as Martin keeps tearing up as they make their way north; at the small cat outside Basira’s apartment, the busker playing on the tube, the family sitting on the other side of the carriage with the newborn. Every single time, Jon’s heart twists, stomach flips until Martin lets out a tearful chuckle or a smile marred with tears and lets him know it’s still Martin opposite him. 

The train to Scotland takes six hours, and Jon didn’t bring a book with him. Barely had time to pack, threw a few shirts in the bag before Basira bundled them out of her flat and away from the prying eyes of London. They’re both exhausted. They haven’t had a single moment to just breathe, and even on the train, Jon is jumpy and Martin keeps suddenly sitting upright as if he expects to be elsewhere. But, it’s six hours to themselves, six hours where they aren’t stuck in that oppressive building, and Jon feels himself get lighter with every passing minute he is away from the Archives. Maybe he isn’t so much of a monster just yet. 

It’s not perfect. Martin shies away from the crowds, flinches whenever anyone who isn't Jon, and in these moments, sometimes fog creeps back into his eyes. But then Jon squeezes his hand, and pulls him back. Sometimes, Jon finds himself staring at someone who he Knows has a statement, and Martin pulls him back with a gentle touch, a reassuring smile. For now, he is still Jon, and Martin is still Martin, and that is a miracle.

They take turns talking. Anything and everything that isn’t working; Jon talks for over an hour about the Admiral’s kitten tales, and once Martin regains more of his voice, he gives a quiet lecture on Wordsworth. Somewhere around York, they get into a debate about Keats, and it’s the most emotional Jon has heard Martin sound since he woke up in the hospital all those months ago. Peter’s words echo in Jon’s mind unbidden. 

_ The people you love don’t really exist. _

As far as Jon is concerned, Martin has never been more real as he watches the English countryside go by, a small wonderous smile on his face like he never expected to see anything so beautiful. The realisation of Knowing that he most definitely didn’t is like a knife to his chest. He squeezes Martin’s hand, more of a reflex than any conscious thought. He hadn’t even realised he was still holding it, and by Martin’s slight start, he didn’t either. 

They haven’t spoken about it. Jon’s hand keeps finding Martin’s, instinct mixed with want, and all he knows is that he doesn’t want to let go. It still feels like he’s trying to pull Martin out of the tendrils of fog that they should have left back in London. When Martin smiles at him, though, he feels a little of that anxiety loosen. 

“Whose poems do you actually like, Jon?” Martin asks, after a short resurgence of the Keats conversation - (“Is it so hard to believe that I don’t actually have a deep reason for disliking the man, Martin? I am boring sometimes, you know.”) 

The question takes Jon by surprise a little. 

“It’s been a while since I read any poetry, Martin.” Jon says.

“And yet you can argue about Keats!” Martin replies, a smile in his eyes, and something in Jon’s heart tugs at him. 

“I had to write far, far too many essays about him during my time at University. He and I are old enemies.”

Martin leans back in his seat, shaking his head slightly. “You must have had some allies, though. Someone you actually enjoyed reading. Whose poetry, I don’t know, spoke to you?”

Jon huffs. “I was rather fond of Dickinson, if you must know. I did have one rather enjoyable essay comparing the themes of hope and truth in her works. But I don’t think she wrote my favorite verse.”

“You know that implies you have a favorite verse, then.” Martin says. 

“Of course I do! What English student doesn't?” Jon says, almost indigent, then he sighs when he sees Martin’s slightly crestfallen face at his outburst. “You’ll laugh if I tell you.”

“I won’t laugh.” Martin says, in a voice that says he most certainly will laugh. That is, until Jon fixes him with a look, and his voice becomes soft. “I won’t.”

Jon sighs again, and lets the words form in his mouth; oft quoted, gently murmured to himself in lost moments and sometimes when he just wanted to be pretentious in the quiet of his own flat, looking up at the sky and wishing to be ever so far away. 

“ _ Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; _

_ I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night _ .”

He waits for Martin to laugh. For all the shit he gave him about Keats, Jon deserves it all back at him, for such a cliche verse that is still burned bright into his heart as it had been the first time he had read it. 

When he looks up, Martin isn’t smiling, or stifling a laugh. He just looks thoughtful. 

“What?” Jon asks. 

Martin shakes his head and smiles, but not in a mocking way that Jon expected. “You are an enigma, Jonathan Sims.”

Jon cannot help but return the smile. 

They swap verses until Martin yawns and closes his eyes, intent on sleeping the rest of the way. 

Jon doesn't want to wake him when they arrive, but thankfully the motion of the train does it for him. Martin stirs, rubs at his eyes with the back of his hand and stretching, a strip of skin visible where his top doesn't quite cover all the way. Jon wrestles with his heart as it skips and stores several of his heartbeats for later, and gets up, grabbing their rather empty bags and heading out into the cold Scottish air. 

It’s the kind of air that pulls the oxygen from your lungs, the biting cold that has Jon’s thin frame shaking immediately. They have to wait in line to get a taxi the rest of the way, and Jon can already feel his fingers starting to grow numb. He stamps his feet to try and get some feeling back into them, sticking his hands into his armpits, when suddenly warm arms encircle him. He freezes for a second, panicked, before he hears Martin’s voice next to his ear, asking him gently;

“Is this okay? You looked cold.”

Those heartbeats he had stored away come back in full force, stuttering in his chest at a million miles a minute, and he somehow gets the composure to nod. For a horrible second he thinks it’s because it reminds him of the Buried but it takes a moment for him to realise it’s because he’s content. He hasn’t been content so long, hasn’t felt safe like this in so long that he almost forgot what it feels like. Because it is okay. More than okay. Even if Jon would never have imagined anything like this would happen yesterday, it’s good, it’s even better than holding hands with Martin. 

Martin seems to have noticed that he has frozen in his arms, and starts to pull away.

“Was that too much? I’m sorry, I didn’t think-” Martin sounds not just crestfallen, but anxious, and isn’t avoiding that the whole point of being here? Well, maybe the avoiding the various murder charges too, but, mainly this. Before he can fully unwrap Jon from his ams, jon grabs his hands, and pulls them back around him, in a slight panic and suddenly overwhelmed with the desire  _ not to be apart from Martin _ . 

“It’s okay!” Jon says, far too quickly and far too sharply. “It wasn’t you, it just, caught me by surprise. That’s all.”

Martin opens his mouth to say something, but it’s at this moment that the taxi pulls up next to them, and Jon has to negotiate the price of driving them out into the middle of nowhere in the Scottish highlands with a very loud and enthusiastic Scotsman. 

Neither of them talk very much during the two hour drive, because the driver - Lawrence, he says, because Jon made the mistake of being very tired after the train and  _ asking _ , talks enough for the both of them. It’s only when they pull up and Jon feels more awake than he has done all day he realises what he did. Thankfully, kind of horror stories the guy has had to put up with is lots of drunk students, several hen-do’s and one time when he was eight and a spider’s egg sac burst on his top, but while all of those sound harrowing (particularly to Jon), none of them seem to be supernatural in nature. 

Still, Martin didn’t notice, and Lawrence didn’t seem to notice either, so, Jon is grateful for small mercies. Perhaps the minor childhood trauma would sustain him until Basira can send some statements for him. 

He should be looking at the beautiful scenery; after living in London for so long, he hasn’t been actually out in the wild, so to speak for ages. And he doesn’t think being dragged to Daisy’s murder woods counts, somehow. Instead, he stares at Martin, just as he did on the train. It’s an odd angle, from where he is pressed to Martin’s side in the tight space of the car, and his neck is going to hurt later, but he doesn’t care. Not when he gets to watch Martin’s eyes light up when he sees the sheep in the fields, or the birds flying overhead. 

At one point, Martin nudges Jon as the car idles at a country road junction, waiting for a tractor to pass, and points out the window. There’s a field of highland cows, some staring straight at the car, some lying on the ground. There are even some who are clearly youngsters, looking rather like small fluffy hay bales, and well, they do have a very cute face, with the beginnings of horns poking out of their fur. When he looks back at Martin again, his eyes are shining, and he’s blinking rather rapidly. 

“Those are good cows.” Jon says, reaching for the first thing in his brain that might stop Martin from crying again, and immediately cringes. That is not the smartest thing he has ever said, and while technically true, it seems more likely to make Martin cry more than stop him from sobbing his eyes out in front of a bemused taxi driver.

Martin laughs, and relief blooms in Jon’s chest, even if the laugh is a little wet and choked.

“They are really good cows.” Martin agrees, and Jon leans into Martin’s side, exhausted all of a sudden as Lawrance continues to narrate their drive through the Highlands.

The safehouse is small, tucked into a valley, surrounded by pines and steep, rocky cliffs. The sun is setting slowly, reflecting its twin in the lake that stretches to the west of them. The nearest village is a half hour walk away, according to Lawrence, and it’s small enough for them to be noticed but not of much interest beyond general curiosity. The next nearest farm is three miles away. 

Jon has never been an outdoors kind of person; by rights, this kind of environment should concern him, make him reach for his phone for advice about insects and hypothermia and what to do if you break an ankle in an area with no signal. But it just makes him feel utterly at peace. As biting as the cold it, it fills his lungs in a way that no air at the Institute ever has, loosens the tension curling around his shoulders. 

Martin puts a hand on Jon’s shoulder, and that small warmth is enough to get Jon’s heart rate to pick up, though he cannot for the life of him figure out why. 

“You alright?” He asks, as the cab speeds off behind them. 

“Y-yes.” Jon replies, taken by surprise by the question that interrupts his racing thoughts. “‘Yeah I’m fine, just, not used to the cold yet.”

“Come on.” Martin says. “I’m sure it’ll be warmer in there.”

It is not, in fact, much warmer in the cottage than outside. Inside, the ceilings are low, lined with exposed wood and covered in dust. It clearly hasn’t been used for a very long time. Martin steps forward first, starting to pull of the dusty white sheets from the sofas and small dining table, while Jon starts to have a look around. There isn’t much to see; the cottage has exactly three rooms, one of which contains the small kitchen and living room, all centred around the fireplace which appears to be the primary source of warmth, a bathroom with a tub that Jon would need to wash at least three times before he would be comfortable bathing in it, and one large bedroom, dressed sparsely with one double bed and a small chest of drawers. 

One bed. Jon’s heart does a traitorous twist in his chest, and he doesn’t know if he is excited or afraid. The idea of being asleep, and something touching him, even if it’s Martin, makes his skin curl and his heart tangle in his chest. The last person he slept in a bed with was Georgie and, well, look how that turned out. Even then, though, he thinks about how Martin’s hand felt in his own, how right it was to him, and he simultaneously dreads and is excited by the advent of evening time. And, worst of all, he has no idea why this would make him feel this way. 

He bites down his racing heart and backs out of the room to find Martin wiping down the kitchen counters, before experimentally turning the tap to make some tea. The water coughs and splutters but finally runs clear into the old whistling kettle, and Martin puts it gently to the old gas hob. 

“There’s some green tea, so we don’t need milk, but I should probably head out to get some supplies for this place soon.” Martin explains. “Figured you might want to warm yourself up first, though.”

“That would be wonderful.” Jon heads over to the fireplace, examines the small basket of firewood waiting there. “I’ll try and set up a fire.”

“Do you know how?” Martin asks, voice lightly teasing. 

“I’ve read books!” Jon replies, indigent, setting the wood up in an approximation of the diagrams he vaguely remembers. 

Martin hums in a way that suggests he isn’t going to answer in anyway that Jon likes, but instead of flash of irritation that he would have expected a couple of years ago, there was only a feeling of fondness. This feeling only grows when Martin taps him gently on the shoulder.

“Here.” He says, and holds up a sheath of ink stained pages. “You’ll need some kindling on that. I found an old newspaper.”

A moment later, he leans over Jon to throw a few crumpled pages into the bottom of Jon’s pile, and the gentle press of his body onto Jon’s makes his heart flip, though Martin doesn't seem to notice what his closeness is doing to Jon. 

“Thank goodness I thought to pack matches.” Jon says, in lieu of anything else to say, and Martin laughs, and his whole body shakes with it, and pressed into him, Jon can feel it too, and the warmth in Jon’s chest only gets hotter, and maybe he doesn’t need the fire anymore. 

He leans forward, and Martin leans over him to steady the propped up wood, and he’s proud that he’s only slightly shaking when he lights the match with Martin’s presence hovering directly behind him, pressed gently into him. The fire roars to life with a quickening flame, the ink on the page turning the flames green and red before they fade to a soft golden yellow as the logs catch. 

Even with the fire now blazing, the absence of Martin’s warm weight as he gets up to go check on the tea makes Jon feel cold. Kneeling on the floor of the cottage, wheels in his mind, long unused, start to turn. Dots start to connect, and it is human, painful and slow. No supernatural aid will help him come to this realisation. 

But it’s not until Martin hands him the mug, when their fingers brush for just a split second, that the connections click into place. It’s an electric feeling, something strange and new and familiar all at once, even though he has been holding Martin’s hand for most of the day. His stomach swoops, like he is standing on the edge of the precipice of realisation and staring into the void of unknowing. But at the same time, he does know. In this instant of contact between them, the last few years of cups of tea and small smiles and momentary glances, of panic and fear and only feeling safe with Martin’s solid presence in the room, despite his paranoia, rush into him, and oh, oh  _ oh.  _

He is an idiot. He has been an idiot for so long, and Martin is looking at him with a puzzled expression because the realisation has left Jon breathless and clutching the mug like a lifeline. 

“Are you alright?” Martin asks and Jon is going to die, and for once it won’t be an eldritch horror that kills him. “If it’s too hot, you don’t have to drink it now -”

“It’s perfect!” Jon blurts out, ignoring the voice in his brain that says  _ You’re perfect  _ instead, because he’s only just realised this, he can’t just say that aloud. 

Martin raises an eyebrow. “Its tea that's been in a cupboard for god knows how long, if you say so, Jon.”

He needs to call Georgie, Jon thinks, and then remembers Georgie isn’t speaking to him. Fuck. Okay. He needs to apologise to Georgie, god, she was right, why is she always right about everything?

He pulls out his phone. No signal, and Martin’s phone was left on his desk back at the Institute, so their best option is probably the phonebox down in the village. And it’s nearing 10pm, and he’s so bone tired exhausted from travel….

Tomorrow, he thinks, and then remembers the Bed Situation. Oh  _ god.  _

* * *

He finds Martin staring at the bed, after he finishes washing the mugs up. (He had insisted, after Martin had made the tea, and besides, he needed time to think, to try and puzzle out his thoughts and feelings of the last three years, because it's all so obvious now in retrospect)

“Martin?” He asks, and Martin jumps when Jon places a hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” Martin says, not sounding alright at all. “I just… There’s only one bed, Jon.”

Jon’s stomach does a nosedive to the ground. “I can take the sofa.” He says immediately, even though he really, really doesn’t want to, even though it’s going to be freezing in the living room, even with the fire, even though he desperately doesn’t want to let Martin out of his sight. 

“You’ll freeze!” Martin says. 

“So would you!”

“A lot slower than you! And besides, I’m used to the cold, I’ll be fine.”   
  
Jon shakes his head. “That sofa is far too small for you, your feet will hang off and that’s hardly comfortable. It’s not fair on you, I’ll take the sofa -”

“ _ Please don’t leave me alone _ .” Martin says, unthinking and desperate, and immediately turns the colour of a tomato. It would be almost funny, if there wasn’t this look of shame and guilt in his eyes that cut Jon to his core. 

“Are you, are you sure you’re okay with that?” Jon asks. “I wouldn’t… I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“Only if you are!” Martin says, not looking at Jon. “God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean -”

“Martin.” Jon says, and does the stupid thing, and takes Martin’s hand. The rambling stops immediately, but his hand is still trembling. “I-I want to. Okay? If you want me to stay, I’ll stay.”

Martin still isn’t looking at him. Is he allowed to do this, Jon thinks, raising his one free hand, and hesitantly brushing his fingers under Martin’s chin, inviting him to tilt his head up, letting his hand gently rest on his cheek. He can feel Martin’s heart rate jump underneath his fingers. He hopes this is okay. 

“Look at me, Martin.” He says, and finally, Martin does. “I’m not leaving you alone. I promise.”

“I don’t want to force you…” Martin says, but he sounds slightly less miserably guilty. 

Jon shakes his head. “You aren’t. It’s better this way, anyway. It’s only going to get colder tonight.”

“Did you, you know,  _ Know  _ that?” Martin asks. 

“No, I checked the weather once I knew where we were going.” Jon says dryly, and reluctantly pulls away from Martin’s hands, heading towards the bed. His feet are too cold to wait anymore. “I have to rely on the inaccuracy of the Met Office, same as everyone else, Martin.”

Martin laughs quietly. “Shame. I was hoping we could use your pinecone nature to know if we need to bring an umbrella out tomorrow?”

“A pinecone?” Jon raises an eyebrow.

Martin turns off the light, leaving the small bedside lamp the only illumination in the room. “Yeah, you know? Opens when it’s sunny, closes when it’s wet?”

“And a bit of a prick?” Jon comments, smiling. 

“Well, I won’t deny that didn’t factor into it a little bit.” Martin is smiling, but he’s still dithering at the end of the bed, hands twisting together. 

Jon’s face softens, and he pulls back the duvet. “Come to bed, Martin.”

And finally, Martin does. He is very clearly holding himself back from Jon, and the few inches between their hands seem like a chasm that Jon can’t bridge. Or at least, doesn’t want to if Martin doesn’t want him too. 

Jon switches off the lamp, and for a moment, they lie together in the dark, not touching, not speaking. 

Jon clears his throat. “Goodnight, Martin.”

Martin huffs out a quiet laugh. “Goodnight, Jon.”

It’s a few minutes later, when Jon is on the edge of falling into unconsciousness, that Martin speaks up, so quiet that Jon is sure that it wasn’t actually meant to be heard, or maybe Martin didn’t even mean to say it aloud. Jon cannot help his smile that creeps into his expression unbidden. Maybe he was going to get through this after all.

“I like pinecones.” Martin says, sleepily, and Jon listens as his breathing slowly evens out into peaceful sleep. 

* * *

Jon wakes to a cold bed. At first, he just thinks that Martin has gotten up to use the toilet, and that he left the blankets off, but when he reaches out a hand, he finds the blankets still there, covering all of him. 

And yet, it’s ice cold. 

This is enough to have him sit up in bed, and though the moonlight shining in through the window, he sees the rest of the room, and his heart drops. 

With his back to him, as pale as the moon, Martin lies, still and silent. Jon can’t see his face, but his back, his hair, all of it is washed white and pale and though it, Jon can see the other wall. 

“Martin!” Jon says, panic gripping him as he scrambles out of bed to kneel at Martin’s bedside. It’s no better there. Martin’s eyes are open, grey and cold. His hand hangs limply off the bed, and it is as intangible and translucent as the rest of him. Jon’s heart is in his throat. He doesn’t know if Martin is really awake, or if this is an aftereffect of a nightmare, or maybe, the Lonely was cruel enough to let Jon believe that Martin can be saved. He wants to reach out, to grab, to hold and pull Martin back, but he’s terrified at the mere thought of his hands simply dispelling this image of Martin away, the form curling away into smoke. 

The blanket still pulls around Martin’s form. There is still an imprint of his head on the pillow and on the sheets. He might be still corporeal enough. 

“ _ Martin _ !” Jon says again, his desperation rising in his throat and choking his words. “Martin, wake up!”

There is no response. Jon doesn’t really have any choice left, and he very carefully, reaches out his hand, and cannot stop his sigh of utter relief when he finds Martin’s fingers, as cold as a shard of ice but there, however they may look. His other hand finds Martin’s cheek, frozen but solid. 

“Martin.” He says, and he cannot stop his voice cracking. He lost him once. He cannot lose him again, god, please don’t let him lose Martin again. “Martin,  _ please _ . Please come back. Come back to me, Martin. I’m here, you’re here, I…” His feet are freezing on the bare wooden floor of the cottage. Hot tears land and burn into his skin. “I’m here, and I’m not letting the Lonely take you now. Come back, Martin.  _ Please _ .” 

Martin’s eyes close, and he takes a sudden shuddering breath. The colour creeps back into his skin; hair turning back to a dull red in the dark, skin still pale but no longer translucent and when he opens his eyes again, they are back to their deep rich hazel. 

“Jon.” He says, voice hoarse like he hasn’t spoken for days. Then his expression cracks like glass and he curls into Jon’s grip, whole body shaking with sobs.

Jon’s knees start to get cramped, kneeling on the floor as he is, so he very carefully stands, ensuring that he does not, under any circumstances, lets go of Martin’s hand, and maneuvers himself so that he can cradle Martin against the side of his body. Martin clutches on like a lifeline and so Jon holds him, gentle and warm and as safe as he can make Martin feel, wiping away Martin’s tears, and whispering soft words into the dark;  _ I'm here, I won't leave you, I promise, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, Martin _ . 

He will be what Martin needs; not an Archivist, not an ally, perhaps not even a friend. A shield against the world, a lighthouse in a storm, the anchor in the face of one of the deepest and most insidious fears. Martin’s done that enough for him. He has a very large debt to start repaying. 

It takes some time for Martin to finally shudder to a halt; all emotions rushing back into him at once finally finished its course, and he sags, exhausted, into Jon’s side. 

“I’m sorry.” Martin says, finally. “I woke you up.”

Jon can’t help but laugh, short and shocked. “That’s what your first thought is?”

“I know your sleeping patterns, Jon.” Martin mumbles. “You need your rest.”

“Martin, I know you’re… you take care of people, and that’s good, but please, think about yourself for once.” He squeezes Martin’s hand. “You scared me, Martin.”

“I’m s-” 

“Don’t you dare apologise.” Jon says. “Not for this. Not for you.”

Martin looks up at him, from where they are curled together on the bed. 

“Jon.” He says quietly. “You don’t have to worry for me.”

“You’re right.” Jon says. “I don’t have to. But I  _ want  _ to. Martin, I…” It’s there on the tip of his tongue, the revelation that shouldn’t be a revelation. The Beholding does not tolerate lies, and Jon can no longer lie to himself. The truth settles like an embrace in his chest; he loves this hurting, wonderful man. 

But now is not the time for the truth. Or at least, not that particular truth. 

Jon swallows. “I failed you, Martin. Practically every day since I became the Archivist. I dismissed you, and distrusted you, and,  _ I left you _ , and by the time I realised how wrong I was, it was almost too late. I almost lost you. In, in our line of work, we very rarely get second chances. I’m not going to spend mine failing you again.”

_ I love you. _ His heart beats with the rhythm of it, echoing in his chest, his mind, in every fibre of his being.  _ I love you, I love you. _

“Jon…” Martin says. “You didn’t - “

“Yes, I did, Martin. I… I had a duty of care. Towards you, and Tim and Sasha, and everyone else, and I  _ failed  _ them. And, Martin, I swear, I won’t lose you too. As… as long as you want me, I will be here.”

“You might get tired after a while.” Martin says, and the words are joking but his tone is not. “If this is what you have to look forward too.”

“Every night.” Jon promises, and he does not stop his words that come spilling out next. “I’d do this happily, every single night for the rest of my life, if it meant you were safe, and that you were  _ happy _ .”

Martin laughs, a wet and choked sound. “With everything that’s happened, do you even think we can be happy?”

His voice echoes slightly. Jon is filled, suddenly, with a vicious feeling of rage towards the death of Peter Lukas. It was too quick. He deserved to suffer worse, for what he has done to Martin. 

“I was happy today.” And then, because apparently his mouth is an ally to his heart and a traitor to his brain. “I’m happy when I’m with you. When you were with Peter, it was… it was like someone had taken the sun away. Like I didn’t know how to be happy anymore. Now it feels like all the pieces are back together.”  _ Like I’m finally where I’m supposed to be.  _

“Jon...” Martin’s voice quivers, “You’re going to make me cry again.” 

Jon huffs out a quiet laugh. “I think my shirt still has a dry spot somewhere, try and aim for that.”

This makes Martin laugh, a proper laugh, though tinged with exhaustion. He yawns, and tucks his head into Jon’s side again. 

“Try and sleep, okay?” Jon says gently. “It’s early enough. And we can talk more in the morning.”

“Alright.” Martin mumbles, not really having the energy to either argue with this or talk further. “You’ll -?”

“Of course I’ll stay, Martin.” Jon says. “I promised, didn’t I?”

Martin hums in response. The sound echoes in Jon’s chest, where Martin is resting his head. Jon never wants him to move. His warmth and weight make his heart feel bold, bolder than he has ever felt in a long while. As he himself moves towards sleep, he feels Martin’s breath even out and carefully, tenderly, presses a light kiss to the top of Martin’s head, his curls tickling Jon’s nose. 

He wants to whisper,  _ I love you _ . He wants too, so badly that his heart aches in his chest with the weight of it. 

Instead, he curls up under the covers, and holds Martin in his arms, and lets the sound of Martin’s heart beating lull him into sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> The last scene of this is inspired by art found at  
> https://squeeneyart.tumblr.com/post/189000183592/tma-has-physical-manifestations-of-loneliness
> 
> I am v much hoping that Jon isnt ooc at the end of the fic so please, please let me know your thoughts/opinions down in the comments!


End file.
